Smithsonian Libraries

Cooking from the Collections: National Soup Month

Did you know that January is National Soup Month? We didn't either but it gave us a great topic for this month's Cooking from the Collections feature! We whipped up two creamy, comforting vegetable soups that are sure to warm you up. We're happy to say that although they are the simplest recipes we've tried, they were also the most lauded by our SIL tasters (well, those without lactose issues, that is). Turns out you can't go wrong with butter and milk, flavored with a smidgen of vegetables. A cooking textbook from 1915 demonstrates that Paula Deen wasn't the first to hit upon that successful formula!

 

 

Green Pea Soup

This recipe comes from the fascinating A text-book of cooking by Carlotta C. Greer, published in 1915. As the title indicates, it was designed as a textbook to accompany cooking classes and hidden in the "Body-Building Vegetables" chapter was this gem. Despite the healthy-sounding name, this soup was so very rich and creamy that one taster commented "That soup should be a sauce". In fact, the basis of the dish is a simple white sauce, flavored with a bit of mushed peas. I take partial blame for the meager amount of vegetables, though. The recipes instructed me to cook the peas until "very soft". It occurred to me later that my modern idea of peas that are soft are probably still undercooked by 1915 standards. In addition, I found that mashing something through a strainer takes some serious upper body work! My weak biceps, combined with peas that may have been a bit too hard, produced little pea puree. Next time I will cook the peas to my desired level of doneness and then blend them with the cooking water using an immersion blender. You can read more of Greer's recipes via the digitized copy on Google Books here!

 

Ingredients:

• 1 pint or can peas
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 2 cups water (or liquid from canned peas)
• Pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups milk

Directions:

1. Add peas, water and sugar to a saucepan and cook until peas are soft.
2. Drain the peas and press through a strainer (as I mentioned this didn't work out so well for  me, perhaps a food mill would be better?). Set aside.
3. Heat butter in saucepan until bubbling and then add flour, salt and pepper. Stir constantly until flour is golden brown. Slowly wisk in the milk and simmer until sauce has thickened. 
4. Stir in pea puree and serve.

-Erin Rushing

 

 

Cream of Tomato Soup

Our tasters also enjoyed this cream-based vegetable soup, from Cooking with Sour Cream and Buttermilk, published by the Culinary Arts Institute in 1956.  The sour cream added a bit of tang but the real surprise ingredient here is Accent, a brand of seasoning containing monosodium glutamate (MSG). We don't necessarily endorse the use of MSG, but our fore-warned tasters reported not ill side effects from their limited exposure. Is it the Cream of tomato Soup of my childhood? No, that soup always will come from a can.

 

 

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cup of No. 2 tomato juice (unsure of what "No.2" indicated, we used regular Campbell's)
• 1 stalk of celery with leaves, cut crosswise into quarters
• ½ small onion, sliced
• 2 springs of parsley
• ½ bay leaf
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 ½ teaspoons of sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• A few grains of white pepper ( I used  black pepper, did not see purchasing white pepper  for the use of a few grains)
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, blend in 2 tablespoons of flour
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• ¼ teaspoon of monosodium glutamate or Accent      
• Few grains of pepper
• ¾ cup of milk
• ¾ cup thick sour cream

Directions:

1. Combine in a saucepan tomato juice, vegetables, spices, sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to boiling, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 min.
2. Meanwhile, prepare in a large saucepan the Sour Cream White Sauce.  Heat butter, salt, pepper and Accent over low heat until mixture bubbles. Gradually stir in milk.  Cook rapidly, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens. Remove from heat. Stirring vigorously, add in very small amounts thick sour cream.  Cook 2 or 3 min longer, stirring constantly until sauce is just heated.
3. Strain tomato juice mixture. Add it very slowly to the hot white sauce, stirring constantly and vigorously with a wooden spoon: DO NOT BOIL.
4. Serve immediately.

-Ninette Dean

Cooking from the Collections: More sweet treats!

Welcome to Part II of December's Cooking from the Collections feature! This month, our intrepid recipe testers tried their hand at old fashioned sweets.  The treats included Martha Washington’s recipe for sugar cookies, a boozy 1950’s  rum pudding, and a gingerbread cookie that might have been a favorite of James Smithson.  Who do you think would win a holiday bake-off? The founder of the Smithsonian, our very first First Lady or an aspiring June Cleaver?  Today we present the remaining two recipes. Click over to Friday's post to learn more about James Smithson's gingerbread.

All three desserts ready for sampling.

 

Martha Washington’s Sugar Cookies

Before there was Martha Stewart in the kitchen, there was Martha Washington. Thanks to a transcription by Karen Hess of Martha Washington’s Booke of cookery, anyone can whip up the the original First Family’s favorite treats for the holidays.  Not only does Hess dutifully transcribe Martha Washington’s personal cookbook, she also translates ingredients and cooking methods for modern times.  These basic cookies (callled "cakes" by Martha) were really rather plain, but could easily be spruced up with vanilla or lemon zest or festive royal icing.  If nothing else, they’ll make an excellent conversation starter. Do you think George was a fan of sweets? That might explain the teeth.

 

 

Adapted from Martha Washington’s Booke of cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Makes about 30 cookies.

Ingredients:

•  3 cups of unbleached pastry flour
• ½ cup of raw granulated sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 4 tablespoons heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons rose water
• 10 tablespoons butter, cold and cut in to small pieces

 Directions:

1. Preheat an oven to 375 degrees. Line 2-3 large cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Sift together flour and sugar in large bowl.
3. Stir in egg, cream and rose water.
4. Transfer mixture to food processor  and add butter pieces. Pulse just until the mixture forms a solid dough.
5. Allow the dough to rest.  The directions are a bit fuzzy on this. I put mine in the fridge, so that it would be easy to roll out, for about 15 minutes.
6. Roll the dough out (I worked in sections and kept the unused part in the fridge) and cut in to shapes. Use a water glass if you’re going for authenticity!
7. Space the cookies about an inch apart on the pans and bake, about 8-10 minutes, rotating the pans half way through. Remove to wire racks for cooling.

— Erin Rushing

 

Swedish Rum Pudding

This recipe is from Elegant Desserts , published by Culinary Arts Institute, the same folks that brought us The Casserole Cookbook, previously discussed here. Of course I wanted to serve it with lingonberries they are Scandinavian and besides it would also mean a trip to IKEA and it doesn’t get more Swedish than that.  Overall, this dish did turn out. To some the rum maybe overpowering but it had just enough. 

 

 

Adapted from the Elegant Dessert pamphlet published by the Culinary Arts Institute 1955.

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup of cold water
• 2 teaspoons of unflavored gelatin
• 4 egg yokes
• 2 cups of heavy cream (I used whipping cream)
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ teaspoon of salt
• 3 tablespoons rum
• lingonberry or raspberry sauce

Directions:

1. Set out six custard cups
2. Pour water into small cup and sprinkle evenly with gelatin. Let gelatin stand about 5 minutes to stoften
3. Meanwhile blend well in the top of a double boiler the egg yolks, cream, sugar and salt. Cook over simmering water, stirring constantly and quickly, until egg yolk mixture coats a silver spoon (Here I used an everyday flatware spoon)
4. Remove from heat and strain into a bowl. Immediately stir in gelatin. Stir until gelatin is completely dissolved. Set aside to cool stirring occasionally. Add in the rum and stir until thoroughly blended. Pour mixture into the custard cups and set in the refrigerator to chill (about 2 hours).
5. When ready to serve, unmold desserts by carefully running a knife around inside edges of cups; invert onto serving dishes.
6. Serve with lingonberries or Raspberry Sauce.

— Ninette Dean

Cooking from the Collections: James Smithson's Gingerbread and more

Welcome to our monthly Cooking from the Collections feature! This month, our intrepid recipe testers tried their hand at old fashioned sweets.  The treats included Martha Washington’s recipe for sugar cookies, a boozy 1950’s  rum pudding, and a gingerbread cookie that might have been a favorite of James Smithson. Who do you think would win the holiday bake-off? The founder of the Smithsonian, our very first First Lady or an aspiring June Cleaver? Today we showcase a recipe from a cookbook owned by James Smithson. Stay tuned for more recipes next week!



Like many well-reared gentleman and natural philosophers of his day, James Smithson, founder of the Smithsonian Institution, was given to penciling annotations (notes, corrections, commentary, preferences, etc.) into his books.  Marginalia, as we call it in book circles.  Poking through his copy of Hannah Glasse’s cookbook, The art of cookery made plain and easy (1770), I found two recipes for “ginger-bread”.  Gingerbread as you may know can refer to either a cookie or cake (beware though that in the 18^th century “cakes” could also mean cookies!).  In Smithson’s copy there is an “x” gently penciled next to the cake-like (or quick bread) version, and a dog-ear on the page with the cookie recipe.  It left me wondering if Smithson was trying to distinguish his preference for the cookies over the cake. 

 

Gingerbread recipes from James Smithson's copy of The art of cookery. Note the very faint "x" in the bottom left corner of the top photo and the dog-ear crease in the top right of the bottom photo.

 

To further Smithson’s initial mission of the Smithsonian Institution as an establishment for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge”, and in the holiday spirit, here is the recipe for the gingerbread cookies Mr. Smithson may have preferred from his own copy of Glasse’s Art of cookery. I’ve halved the recipe and adapted it for modern consumption though you will need a kitchen scale.  Below is an image of the original recipe.  For all you food historians and 18^th century English scholars out there, I encourage to comment on my adaptation and interpretations. 

 

Making the cookies. From L-R: A few ingredients (including treacle), beating the ginger, cutting the cookies.

 

 

Ginger-bread cakes [i.e. cookies]

Adapted from Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery (1770)

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ lb. flour
• ½ lb. sugar
• ½ lb. butter, at room temperature
• 1 oz. fresh ginger, peeled and beaten fine*
• ½ nutmeg seed, grated
•  ½ lb. treacle (i.e. golden syrup*)
• ¼ c. heavy cream

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325°*.  Have ready two cookie sheets either lightly butter or lined with parchment.
2. In large bowl, rub together with finger tips flour, sugar, and butter into a fine meal.
3. Rub in nutmeg and ginger.
4. Stir together over medium heat cream and treacle until warm (not hot).
5. Add warmed cream/treacle mixture to flour mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon or sturdy rubber spatula until dough is a stiff mostly unified mass*.  If there are stray crumbs, don’t worry, they can be pressed in to the dough when forming discs.      
6. Form dough into three discs.  Roll out on a lightly floured board until about 5 mm. or 3/8” thick.
7. Using a small glass or cookie cutter, cut dough into desired forms and transfer to prepared cookie sheets.
8. Bake one sheet in the middle of the oven at a time for 11 min. or until light brown at the edges.  Or two sheets at a time, in the top and bottom third of the oven, rotating sheets halfway through baking.
9. Let cookies rest for at least 2 minutes on sheets before transferring to cooling racks.

 

*Notes on recipe interpretation, and other observations:

• A “slack” oven was called for, which loosely translates as “moderate”.  I took that to mean 300-325 degrees.  My oven at home runs a little cool, so I baked them at 325.  For authenticity I chose to use unlined baking sheets, but did opt for a bit of butter to prevent sticking even though the recipe did not mention greasing the “tins”.
• Since the type of ginger (dried or fresh) was not indicated, I assumed Ms. Glasse meant fresh, since an ounce of “beaten” dried ginger would be *a lot* of flavor.
• For the dough, I found that “stiff” correlated to dry, like shortbread dough.
• In North America, golden syrup can be found in the British international section of specialty grocery stores. It is readily available in England.

 

The art of cookery was written in “plain and easy” manner for literate servants.  It was one of the most popular cookbooks of its time among the British elite because it freed the lady of the house from having to explain recipes to the household help.

—Daria Wingreen-Mason

Cooking from the Collections: Casseroles make a comeback

Welcome to our new "Cooking from the Collections" feature! On a monthly basis, we will be experimenting with the wide variety of cookbooks in the Smithsonian Libraries' collections. From a personal cookbook of James Smithson to the many volumes of the Culinary Historians of Washington (CHoW) collection, we have plenty to work with!

 

It's that time of year again! For many, the Thanksgiving meal is the culinary event of the year (we'll be giving thanks for elastic-waist pants!), filled with turkey, pumpkin pie, and mountains of side dishes. What Thanksgiving table would be complete without a homey casserole to round out the offerings? For our inaugural "Cooking from the Collections" post, we've decided to feature a few unusual dishes from The Casserole Cookbook. A 1956 volume, written by "Staff Home Economists" and published by the Culinary Arts Institute, it boasts "175 main dish and dessert casseroles". The photo credits acknowledge a number of large companies in the food industry, such as the American Meat Institute and Ac'cent, and the recipes place a heavy emphasis on canned ingredients and monosodium glutamate.

 

The offerings: Plantation Corn Pudding, Deep Dish Apple Scallop, Macaroni Royal, accompanied by The Casserole Cookbook.

 

Our three testers each chose a recipe. Could they make their way to your Thanksgiving table or were they better left in a bygone era? Let's see! Each recipe is below with our staff's notes and adaptations in italics.

A brave staff taster samples "Plantation Corn Pudding".

 

Macaroni Royal

Macaroni Royal casserole. What’s not to love? It has macaroni, cheese, sautéed green peppers, onions, some seasonings, a can of tomato soup, and green olives. Green olives, you say?

Ingredients:

•  2 cups of cooked macaroni noodles
• 1 ¼ cups (10 ½ to 11 oz can) of tomato soup. In my case, it was a 10 can of condensed tomato soup
• ½ cup of stuffed olives
• A few drops of tobasco sauce
• And a mixture of: ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon monosodium glutamate (omitted), ¼ teaspoon dry mustard, and a dash of paprika
• 2/3 cup (6 ¾ oz can) drained mushrooms
• ½ cup of chopped onion
• ½ cup of chopped green pepper
• 1 clove of garlic, cut in halves  
• ½ lb. of cheddar  cheese, cut in to slices

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2 qt casserole dish (I chose butter and I also used a 1 ½ qt casserole dish)
2. Combine tomato soup, olives, tobasco sauce and spice mixture.
3. Heat in a skillet 3-4 tablespoons of fat(I used butter) add onion and pepper and cook until onion is transparent. 
4. Blend tomato mixture into vegetables. Cover and simmer 5 min. Place ½ of macaroni in casserole dish and cover with ½ of the vegetable mixture and repeat.
5. Spear garlic with wooden picks (for easy removal after vegetables are cooked) and place in casserole.  I put them on toothpicks and cooked them in the casserole and they fell off the toothpicks as I tried to pull them out 
6. Overlap cheese slices in a border around top. I cubed the cheese and added half in the middle of the layers and the other half on top
7. Bake at 350 25-30 minutes or until cheese slices are softened and tinged with brow.

After all that, it was rather bland. Maybe due to the fact that there was no MSG in it or maybe it just needed more salt and pepper. However, after it was put out for taste testing it seemed to disappear.   I hope nobody bit into a hunk of the garlic that was left in the casserole.  I’m still not sure what makes it royal.       

-Ninette Dean

 

Plantation Corn Pudding

This is one of the most questionable recipes I have ever made, and I eat Brussel sprouts on a regular basis. Instead of an elegant corn accompaniment, it was more akin to some kind of western omelet flan. Much like a melodramatic soap opera star (or maybe your aunt after she's had a few too many glasses of Chardonnay with her turkey), it wept uncontrollably. Yet despite its texture, it actually did have a few fans at the tasting. It might be worth tinkering with to create a more stable base.

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups cream-style corn
• 2 tablespoons slivered pimentos (Unable to find pimentos, I used roasted red peppers)
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped green pepper
• 2 tablespoons grated onion
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease casserole dish. Put a pot of water on to boil for water bath.
2. Scald milk and add butter.
3. As milk heats, beat eggs and combine with vegetables and seasoning. 
4. When milk starts to foam, whisk slowly in to egg mixture. Pour in to casserole dish. 
5. Place casserole dish into larger pan and fill larger pan with boiling water. Bake in oven for 60 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. My pudding was still completely liquid and no where near done at the hour mark. I cranked up the heat to 350 and cooked for an additional 30 minutes before it solidified.

-Erin Rushing

 

Deep-Dish Cheese Apple Scallop

As an avid dessert maker, it pained me to do this to apples. While the orange zest and juice did complement the dish, I could not get over the addition of corn flakes. The smell was just off.  And I kept wondering why the author referred to this as a “pudding” at the end of the recipe...

  Ingredients:

•  1 ½ c corn flakes
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar, divided
• 3 tbs flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• 3 tbs butter or margarine (trying to be authentic, I opted for margarine)
• 1 tsp grated orange peel
• 3 oz grated cheddar cheese
• 6-7 medium sized firm, tart cooking apples (Granny Smiths)
• ¼ c orange juice

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Butter a 2 qt casserole dish.
2. Crush corn flakes with 1/4 cup brown sugar (I pulsed both in a food processor 10-15 seconds). Set aside.
3. Thoroughly blend together remaining sugar and spices (again I used the trusty food processor).
4. Add margarine and orange peel. (I pulsed in the food processor for a second, ten times.  Then I switched to the grating attachment to  . . .)
5. Add grated cheese.
6. Wash, quarter, core, pare and cut apples into 1/8 inch slices.
7. Arrange half the slices in the casserole dish. Spread half the cheddar mixture on the apples. Arrange the rest of the apples atop this. Add the last of the cheddar mixture. Then sprinkle orange juice over the surface. Finally, cover the surface with the corn flake mixture.
8. Bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes, or until the apples are tender (it took me a little longer).
9. Let cool, but serve slightly warm.

This was close enough to a crumble that I would probably make something like it again, only substituting an oaty crumble for the cornflakes, and maybe ditching the cheddar cheese.  I’d also probably use heirloom apples and real butter. Or just make a pie and save the cornflakes for breakfast.

-Richard Naples